Beef Tagine with Butternut Squash and Scallion Couscous

Dinner tonight was super yummy and packed with flavor!  Tagines in Moroccan cuisine are slow-cooked stews braised at low temperatures, resulting in tender meat with aromatic vegetables and sauce.  This tagine was a pretty quick cooker, but probably the meat would have benefited more from a longer simmer at a lower temp.  I swear I bought shallots, but when I started cooking I couldn't find them and ended up using a regular onion.  Like I said, the meat could have been a bit more tender (though it was not tough) and I needed to cook it about 10 more minutes than the recipe said to get the squash done.  This would also have been fabulous in a slow cooker.  The darling daughter actually ate it, though she said it was so she could get dessert....and the hubby thought it was pretty tasty too.  He liked this one better than the Sweet Potato Tagine with Pine Nut Couscous that I have made in the past.  The reason for that is that he likes MEAT and the sweet potato recipe was a vegitarian recipe.    For the couscous, I used the Near East garlic and olive oil couscous, chopped up some scallions and tossed them in once couscous was cooked.

Here is the recipe:
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=50400000109584

This was a pretty straightforward meal to prepare too.  Easy and full of complex flavors.  Who could ask for more!?!